The Bunny Man Unmasked - Page 6

The Bunny Man Unmasked:
The Real Life Origins of an Urban Legend

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His Identity?

Who was the Bunny Man, and what was he trying to accomplish? Sadly, we
will likely never know his identity. Likewise his true motivations are
known only to himself, but there are a few clues contained in the
foregoing sources. On October 18 the Bunny Man accused Robert Bennett of
trespassing.42 On October 29 the Bunny Man told security guard
Paul Phillips that "You all trespass around here."43,
and on November 4, the self-styled "Axe Man" accused the unnamed
representative of Kings Park West Subdivision of dumping debris on his
property.44 If we assume that all three incidents involved the
same individual, then it appears that this young man was disturbed by the
development of the area. Said development was extensive in 1970, too.
Until the second World War Fairfax County was a rural farming community.
The build-up of Federal employment in the region fueled intensive
residential development in the closer suburbs of Arlington and Fairfax
Counties. The 1950s saw tract housing being built in Springfield, McLean,
Annandale, and Fairfax. The somewhat modest developments of the early
1960s eventually gave rise to near town-size projects like Reston and
Burke Centre.

Kings Park West is a subdivision of over 1500 homes, and was one of
several such developments either built or under consideration for the
Burke area at the time of the incidents. James W. Robinson
Secondary45School opened the next year with nearly 3,900
students. While Fairfax County began to look seriously at land use
planning issues in the 1950s, the first countywide Comprehensive Land Use
Plan was not adopted until 1975. Many people living in Fairfax County in
the 1960s and '70s were disturbed to see pastures and woods giving way to
roads, subdivisions, and shopping centers. Being forced to watch
helplessly while the face of your community changes around you can elicit
strange behavior in some people.

And what was the significance of the bunny costume? I am not prepared to
even hazard a guess.

Conclusion

Who the Bunny Man was and what motivated him to act in such a bizarre
manner is still a mystery, however, the available evidence points to the
October 1970 events as the genesis of the Bunny Man legend. Many of the
tales collected by Patricia Johnson in 1973 clearly derive from the
events as reported in the newspaper and the television news of that
period. The official police report makes no mention of any pre-existing
stories that this individual could have been copying. Furthermore,
William L. Johnson specifically stated to the author that he found no
indications of any earlier stories or criminal incidents involving an
individual dressed as a rabbit.46

It is also plainly evident that the story began to take on the features
of an urban legend quite soon after the events were reported.
Investigator Johnson was following leads generated by school-yard rumors
less than two weeks after the first appearance of the Bunny Man, and by
the time Patricia Johnson began her work two-and-a-half years later, the
story had mutated in location, frequency, and severity.